Building Toronto Blue Jays Culture with Mark Shapiro | S02E04

Mark Shapiro, President and CEO at the Toronto Blue Jays talks about how the Blue Jays came up with their values, how to deal with star performers who have a negative impact on culture, and why it’s important to align the person we are with the leader we are.

In today's episode, you'll learn:

• How the Blue Jays came up with their values and who was part of that process
• How to deal with star performers who have a negative impact on culture
• How to create a framework to make great decisions 
• Why it’s important to align the person you are with the leader you are

Visit www.kizo.ca/podcast to get extra resources or join our mailing list.

Our guest, Mark Shapiro is the President and CEO at the Toronto Blue Jays. Widely considered one of MLB’s top executives, Mark has been named Executive of the year multiple times. He spent 24 seasons in Cleveland, where he quickly moved up the ranks, and has been with the Blue Jays since 2015 and recently re-signed another 5 year contract extension. Mark and I met and talked at a sports conference in Toronto in 2018.

Connect with Mark on Twitter.

Cultivate your Culture is a show that decodes how leaders can create environments where their teams do their best work and flourish. Our guests are pioneers in team dynamics and culture from the worlds of business, military and sport. Hear them share simple, straightforward techniques that you could use with your team to set up, evolve and measure culture.

The host, Zoran Stojkovic helps people build habits and behaviors that unleash their inner greatness so that they can contribute positively to the world. Through his company, Kizo, he equips organizations and people with culture and mindset tools to reach full engagement through powerful workshops, memorable keynotes, and transformative individual consultations.

Cultivate Your Culture is produced by Kizo, a leadership coaching organization helping teams to get the results they want so that they can positively impact the world. To learn more about the services Kizo can provide for your team, please check out our website at kizo.ca/team. 

Transcript

Zoran Stojkovic: 0:03

Hey, what's going on and welcome to cultivate your culture. This show, this podcast is where we decode how leaders can create environments where their teams do their best work and flourish. Our guests are pioneers in team dynamics and culture from the worlds of business, military and sport. Hear them shares simple, straightforward techniques that you could use with your team to set up, evolve and measure culture. With over 92,000 hours spent working, let's focus on the relationships and the results will follow. I'm your host, Zoran Stojkovic. And I help people build habits and behaviors that unleash their inner greatness so that they can contribute positively to the world. Now, let's get into today's episode.

Mark Shapiro: 0:51

Our thoughts are always Hey, what if we get 50 100 200 250 People all, you know performing all accountable of thinking about how to get better? You know, how what could that mean to us as an organization and we I think we started that crossed a tipping point that you know what it feels like to work in the Blue Jays IT organization and to be here. And like I said, we're gonna keep executing on that keep believing and doubling down on those values, and I think the championships will follow.

Zoran Stojkovic: 1:20

That's Mark Shapiro, President and CEO at the Toronto Blue Jays, widely considered one of Major League Baseball's top executives, Mark has been named Executive of the Year, multiple times, he spent 24 seasons in Cleveland, where he quickly moved up the ranks and has been with the Blue Jays since 2015. And recently resigned another five year contract extension, Mark and I met and talked at a sports conference in Toronto in 2018. Today, we're going to hear from Mark on how the Blue Jays came up with their values and who was part of that process, how they deal with star performers who have a negative impact on culture, and why it's important to align the person we are with the leader we are something I noticed in this episode is how clearly mark communicated his personal values and how much overlap there was between those values, and the values of the Blue Jays. It's important for leaders to know who they are, and what they value to lead effectively. And that's why I'm so excited for you guys to hear from Mark. And that's coming up next. Thank you for taking time to talk about culture. It's, as far as I know, that's a topic that's that you're passionate about. And that you find pretty important.

Mark Shapiro: 2:29

There's that famous quote from James Drucker like your culture beats strategy every day I I kind of say, I don't believe that I think culture is our strategy. So I, I view culture to be, you know, the biggest scalable competitive advantage that we've got. So an area that we spend a lot of time and energy thinking about.

Zoran Stojkovic: 2:48

Okay, so you saying it's a scalable competitive advantage? And I've heard that before from other guests as well. Why do you say that?

Mark Shapiro: 2:55

Well, I guess the best thing I can do is kind of give you an example, right? You know, people these days spend so many energy, so much energy, and resources, you know, large, largely financial resources, thinking about opportunities to beat their competitors. So analytics is an area that's easy to think about, but so are a lot of the performance areas mental performance, which are obviously, you know, working in unfamiliar with nutrition, hydrations, you know, sleep, you know, all kinds of little things that kind of give you an advantage. But I think the reality is that unless your organization is truly open minded, you know, humble, thoughtful, collaborative, all the things that to me encompass, you know, pieces of what define culture, these for us, none of those resources, either either, they're not not going to be matter, or they're not going to impact, you know, to the extent they largely can impact. So for instance, if you truly have empowerment, collaboration, as you know, pieces, and are linchpins to your culture, and they're their values that you live up to on a daily basis, then people are going to act in a way and as well as high standards and expectations. And people are going to act in a way that you know, as if they're accountable for success, and they're going to take that ownership, they're going to take that accountability, they're going to work with others, they're going to feel empowered, if you're in a moral hierarchy, oh, close minded organization that's resistant to change, then people still may execute and care about doing a good job within the constraints of their job description. But they're certainly not going to look at you know, innovating, pushing the envelope, and you're not going to have you know, you're going to have maybe 50 people doing that at the leadership level instead of 500 people doing it at every level of the organization. So I'm of the belief that for us to overcome huge resource gaps from our biggest competitors, which we certainly have, you know, it takes every single person thinking that their works meaningful, important, and that they feel empowered to make a difference, make a difference make an impact. And those are, you know, that feeling that belief is part of culture.

Zoran Stojkovic: 5:12

So that's a lot of reasons why culture is a competitive advantage. And at the Blue Jays, you guys have a clear cultures so collaborative, collaborate, learn, empower, achieve, and respect, how and when did the Blue Jays come up with those five words?

Mark Shapiro: 5:28

Well, I think it's one of those exercises that whenever, you know, people move organizations and new leadership comes into place new new and existing leaders get together and say, you know, we, we have to think about what links us you know, and you know, when I, when I think about culture, I think about the fact that, you know, and we'll, we'll simplify it for right now and just talk about the baseball operations side of things, because that's the area most that most people are interested in, but it certainly pertains to the business side as well. But within baseball operations, we've got distinct roles and distinct responsibilities. And you can break those down to you know, departments like international scouting, you know, decision sciences, performance areas, but in reality, everyone, you know, in baseball operations is kind of falls under four, you know, basic areas, identify talent, acquire talent, develop talent, because we've got an extensive development system in baseball. And then building when the major league level, it's just the tip of the spear, it's the only thing that people think about and they think about a major league team, but within it, you've got scouting that are out there, in the amateur international professional level, identifying talent, you've got, you know, people that are in analytics that are in, you know, that are managing data that are programmers building out systems and thinking about how to best build models and help us frame decisions. You've got people who are focused on development, or helping players maximize their potential bridge, the gap between where their performance is and where their potential lies, mentally, physically, and fundamentally across your holistic all three areas. And then you've got people thinking about, you know, how do you take that town and build a major league team and win at the major league level, and all the things that go into that, if you don't consciously define your values, then nothing connects, you people still may do a good job, but you're not connecting the same types of players you're identifying may not be the same types of players that you're ultimately acquiring may not be the kinds of players you're ultimately using to build your major league team, there's nothing that kind of joins people together and helps them feel part of something. When we sat down after getting here was it was a, you know, a combination of people that have been here for a long period of time. And then some people like raw sack into myself, and Angus Mugford just came here, you know, and we were trying to develop common ground, and still, you know, what was going to link, you know, those areas going forward. And we, I mean, the funny story is, we not just keep we had, we didn't just come up with the values, the clear values, collaborate, learn power, achieve and respect. We also came up with a mission, you know, like every organization does, and it was long drawn out kind of complex, and but really good, really good. And I remember calling Ross Atkins after the retreat and saying, What are you you know, who's the GM here and saying, What do you How did you feel about it? What do you think about the mission, he goes, it's really good man. But it goes, I wish we could just just, I wish it could just be get better every day. And I sat there for a minute thinking about and I was like, it can, it can be get better, that's beautiful. So the our mission became get better every day to bring world championships to Canada, to Canada. That's it, you know, and our values became clear values. So it's two pieces, you know, the mission is just, we want to get better every day, which means it's a fancy way of saying we're a learning culture. We're a learning organization, you know, that we're focused on perpetual improvement. You know, we're humble, open and learning every single day that that opportunity that exists, every single person here is charged with making some incremental improvement on a daily basis. And if we're doing that, if the player is universal players are doing that, you know, the physios are doing that strength coaches are doing that hitting coaches doing that the intern is doing that the analyst is doing that that video coaches do if all those people are doing that they're different subject matter expertise and advantages and perspectives. Then we again, we're going to be a machine and we're going to roll and we're going to, you know, overcome a lot of challenges and be pretty exceptional at what we do. You guys

Zoran Stojkovic: 9:45

got together when you got to the Blue Jays in 2015. And it was you Angus and a couple of others. And you want to retreat and you just sat down and you brainstormed a bunch of values?

Mark Shapiro: 9:54

Well, it was thinking about like what defines us what connects us what differentiates Working for the Toronto Blue Jays as opposed to working for the Los Angeles Angels, you know, what differentiates working for the Toronto Blue Jays as opposed to working for Microsoft, you know, like, there has to be something that that defines and the links and differentiates what it means to work here something that we can think about. And again, you know, something that we could then take into hiring something that we could then take into how we evaluate something to hold each other accountable, you know, and mostly something that we believe deeply and just could live on a daily basis, because I think all those processes, you know, the way we evaluate people, the way we, you know, hiring may be a little bit different. But once we hire Well, you know, everything else should just be kind of checking things that we already know are going to be in place if we hire really well, because, but we need that roadmap, we need that roadmap that says, These are the things that we hold as being sacred for us, these are the things that are going to guide, you know, the people that I want to work with, who I want to work next to, you know, what has to what's important to the people that want to wake up and work next to every day.

Zoran Stojkovic: 11:09

So you start with the values, and then you use that to figure out who you want to hire and who you actually let in the door because that I believe that has a big impact on culture. Because one, there's a saying out there, it's better to have 1000 enemies outside of your tent than one inside the tent. Yeah, right. Right. So one, one rotten apple can really mess things up.

Mark Shapiro: 11:32

Not only that, like an oversimplification, but so true. I mean, I think the area that people spend, shortchange, that is so crucial to success is hiring, you know, and I don't mean, when I say hiring, you can think of that in sports from a front office executive, or drafting or trading or signing a free agent. But, you know, if we spent more time thinking about the talent we're bringing in, everything else really takes care of itself, right. Because if you hire really well, and the values are part of your hiring, or the culture is part of your hiring, then those people already understand when they come on board, you know, and you're already aligned coming on board, you don't have to worry about alignment, those that's part of the process. If you if you hire really well, then you're going to have a deep base of talent. So succession planning, whether it's, you know, balancing a roster at the major league level, or recognizing that some executives might leave and you need other executives coming behind them. But succession planning will be built in if you hire really well. So the efficiency created by hiring well becomes a competitive advantage, we've got no alignment from day one, when people come in the door, there, the expectation is we hire for people to make us better not to earn their stripes and kind of do through some hierarchy of chain of command and wait for their time, we want people to come in the door with complementary skill sets and make us better the day they get here, right. And then we know that they're already gonna be aligned, because the values alignment was part of the selection process and part of the hiring process. And we've got really high standards and expectations, so and that's the achieved piece of the value. So we've got a talent pipeline coming up. So whether we've got players leave, viewing through free agency, or you know, our price, everything else we're trying to do, or we've got front office that decide for either personal or professional reasons to go to another team, we've got talent coming through, and we've got a smooth transition.

Zoran Stojkovic: 13:37

So then is there how do you measure alignment of actions to values, though? I mean, if somebody how do you measure empowerment? How do you measure whether somebody's learning in their position?

Mark Shapiro: 13:47

Well, if we have to measure it, then we're already off course. You know, I think that, you know, we spend the bulk of our time we do we do measure it through an evaluation process, but we spend the bulk of our time trying to get it right at the outset, not worried about correcting it along the way. Yes, we will hold each other accountable to those values, because they are they're a standard part of our language every day. They're a standard part of how we evaluate success or failure. And they're, they're a standard part of how we, you know, provide evaluations that, you know, along the way and at the end of each year, but I would say to you that those things are just formalities in my mind. They're bureaucratic, they're bureaucratic checkpoints, that if we have to check those things and have to pull back and then we probably did a bad job somewhere else, or we started to disproportionately place an emphasis on results instead of you know, the process along the way. So, you know, we hold ourselves back by spending so much time and energy and talking so much about our values, through hiring process through our year. We're holding ourselves accountable because people you know, as leaders, we're talking about those things and trying to live Have those values every day?

Zoran Stojkovic: 15:01

Oh, I love that you're saying if you're measuring it, you're kind of too late and you have bigger problems and measuring those things.

Mark Shapiro: 15:07

Yeah, I think if you're like having to safeguard or, you know, kind of enforce the values, then you might want to go back and look at how well you did, you know, kind of picking people and selecting people and players that already believe in and, you know, live those values as part of their personal philosophy.

Zoran Stojkovic: 15:27

So then when it comes to selection, how do you make sure those coming in, actually live those values to to a certain standard that the organization wants,

Mark Shapiro: 15:38

through an ever evolving interview process through exercises and through a an examination of the life they've lived. So, you know, whether it's questionnaires and essays they write, whether it's, you know, real world case studies, you know, that we're providing them that kind of solve and sell or whether it's, you know, looking at how they've worked in the past, who they've worked with, who they work for, who's worked for them, and doing a deep dive into kind of, you know, their background, we're looking for people that want to be part of not just a major league baseball team, but want to be part of a clearer culture,

Zoran Stojkovic: 16:13

where you're saying you don't just look at player performance and results and stats, you look at more than that.

Mark Shapiro: 16:18

Absolutely, we do, we look at whether they can be productive, you know, part of our team, a good teammate, you know, and all the things that go in again, the values for our players are a little bit different than collaborate, learn and power, achieving respect, but they are not that far. Apart from that there are many crossovers, they're the values that we hold for our front office, business and baseball, through our performance staffs or our coaching staffs, all of the non players are the clear values. Interesting, we do we place an emphasis on character, perseverance, long term, you know, growth and development and and the humble open, you know, learning piece that that is relevant for our players as it is for for, you know, front office,

Zoran Stojkovic: 17:03

right, so this this 1% improvements every day, this this Kaizen mindset is one of the things that I'm hearing you mentioned quite often, is that something that's personally important to you, is that something? How do you how do you live that? I mean, how do you do that every day?

Mark Shapiro: 17:22

It's something that as I kind of, as you, you seek to evolve and understand, you know, when you're happy, fulfill that piece of content, who you with, and what are you doing, you know, and as I started to think about those things, you know, it's always around other people who are curious, it's around other people who are open minded. It's around other people who, you know, are focused on learning and growing, and developing and getting better. And, you know, you won't, you'll miss opportunities to do that, if you're not open minded, because it's not necessarily going to come with someone that has a bigger title, it's not going to necessarily going to come from someone who, you know, has, you know, status, it could come from anyone, you know, and I think that walking through whether you call it the beginner's mindset, or whether you just, you know, recognize that, as part of your routine, you're going to read something every day, you're gonna enter into every meeting, and every, your group you speak to, with the thought that there's an opportunity here for me to learn, if I come in with an open mind, if I come in so sure of myself. So set in my ways, and so confident in what I'm doing, there's a very good chance, I'm not going to learn, I'm not going to get any better. You know, so my goal is not to tell you how much I know, my goal is to figure out what you know, and see what you know, I can learn from you.

Zoran Stojkovic: 18:54

That's a mindset that I click with, for sure of going into every interaction with, hey, every conversation can can enrich my inner world and, and we it's this give and take, I think, and Doc Rivers talks about using it and this Ubuntu and there's this mindset of you give to me and I give to you, and this exchange happens, and it's not about only taking taking taking or only giving, giving giving.

Mark Shapiro: 19:23

Yeah, I've heard that and I love that. And I think, you know, it's funny wisdom, a lot of times to me is like passing on the, you know, the giving someone else the benefit of your past challenges and your past struggles. So a lot of what I have to offer is not like some sort of, you know, great insight into success. It's, hey, here's the challenges I've had, and here's what here's the miscues and missteps I've taken and hopefully we all can learn from those and get better instead of just me, you know,

Zoran Stojkovic: 19:53

interesting. So if I can ask on that, then what have you What have you done over the past five years together? Create a high standard and this cohesive culture. At the Blue Jays, you've talked about recruiting practices and hiring practices. I wonder if you could speak to some other aspects? And then what have been some of the top blockers or obstacles for you in creating that shift in the organization? When you came in, in November? 2015?

Mark Shapiro: 20:18

Let's start with the second part of the question. You know, and I think that the biggest challenge when you come into transforming culture or just implementing changes in general, you know, some of them are situational, right, just circumstantial, they're just for the moment. So the biggest challenge we came in was just that there was a lot of, you know, very recent success. So people felt in people that were resistant to change, that were not prone to being open minded, and thinking about how things can be better had were emboldened to be resistant to change based on short term success. So that that, to me, though, is just a situational, circumstantial challenge. More systemic, of every place, not the Blue Jays is that, you know, most human beings are comfortable with change, most human beings want to feel certain of, you know, the terrain around them, even if that means that they don't want to be accountable, or they don't want any huge level of responsibility, because it's comfortable to just perform the right responsibilities within this small box, I'm going to just stay in my box, getting out of that, you know, collaborating or, you know, offering an opinion in an area outside of my own expertise, puts me makes me vulnerable, puts me out there. So I would say that, you know, the biggest challenge coming in was the short term success that, and just the inherent reality that until people feel some sort of safety, and trust and respect, they're going to be resistant to being open minded and resistance changing. So you've got the best ways to deal with that, or, you know, to, to earn respect, to earn trust, to not expect that it's given to you based on title based on past, you know, his three year performance, and that you've got to demonstrate and create that safe environment for people so they feel comfortable. Other opportunities for doing that are as simple as how you run meetings, to basically how you make decisions, that's the best example I can give you, you know, if a decision is made by one person, and everybody in an organization, and I've seen this and saw this here, when I got here, it most people in an organization are waiting for one person in the chain of command to make a decision, that's going to be a reflection of the values, you know, and you're inherently saying that person's a better decision maker, for some reasons, you know, which, by the way, is not friggin true. You know, there are no great decision makers, like as much as we anecdotally think someone is prone to making great decisions, I am not that guy, I am not that person. And I've yet to meet the woman or man, that's just a better decision maker. I've met elite leaders that lead best in class decision making processes, which means they which mean they're open minded enough to bring in all the best information from all the best people. And then they create the best framework for how to make decisions. So to me the best, the best way to demonstrate those values, besides the hiring process, which is the single most important way, is to frame decision making processes to frame meetings as opportunities to kind of demonstrate that this is what we're doing, we are collaborating, we are empowering certain people that, you know, that might not be, you know, entitled, the highest to come up with ideas to propose those ideas, you know, to explain, we are expecting high standards, you know, that would be really important, you know, for us, and we're demonstrating that level of respect and everything we do.

Zoran Stojkovic: 24:04

The, you're saying, the ideal time to make tweaks and changes, because when you're on top of your game, and not actually when when you're losing?

Mark Shapiro: 24:13

No, I mean, I think it's got to be constant. You know, I was talking more about the transition coming in, you know, okay, but I think you don't sit back and say, We're not going to live our values today, changes would be the wrong, you know, nomenclature or just the wrong semantics. It's more just growth. It's more learning. It's developing, it's evolving, you know, I mean, it's listening because as some way someone has been doing it might be, you know, already better than anything we've considered. But the one place where I'm, you know, where I'm not flexible, and I'm not open is when someone's not open minded, and they're not humble, and they think that they just know better than everyone else. And that that, to me, would be a violation of the culture we're trying to build here and it would be very tough for us. and need to work with that person long term.

Zoran Stojkovic: 25:02

But what if that safety, trust and respect you're missing for that person, for whatever reason,

Mark Shapiro: 25:07

you do the best you can to, to openly call out that and talk about that and try to develop that. But ultimately, you know, there are going to be people who are not the right fit for for all organizations, either both ways. And so you and you have to make changes, and that's the case.

Zoran Stojkovic: 25:24

So this last season, the Blue Jays had 91 wins, which is one win behind the Red Sox and the Yankees. So with that, that goes to show is it was a tight race, but the importance of each and every game, and you're talking about this continuous evolution and change, how good of a measure is winning of connected and cohesive culture? Actually?

Mark Shapiro: 25:48

Well, I think, again, culture is part of process. And if you execute on process, over and over again, repeatedly, the outcomes will start to align with process more often than not, there always are variables and randomness, that impact you know, the team that won the World Series, one, three less games and asked for less games in the Red Sox, and Yankees. So, you know, I guess what I'd say is just continue to execute over and over and over again. And that likelihood of winning a World Series or a world championship are going to be pretty good over time. But the outcomes do reflect, you know, the process and the values and how you go about things. But but on a short term on a short, you know, on a small set of data on a small, you know, number of games on one season, and independently. You are you're you may end up with an outlier. So you got to stay committed, and you've got to continue to evaluate and assess. And again, like, whether it's 91, or 95, wins, or want to get better no matter what. Sometimes getting better might mean just staying the same number of wins in order to get in order. You know, in order to do that you have to get better.

Zoran Stojkovic: 27:01

Because in your interview on sports net, you mentioned that you want to improve on that number of 91 wins next season. Yeah,

Mark Shapiro: 27:08

well, we need to win one or two more games to be sure we're going to get into the playoffs 91, I think you know, as about a 90% chance, or 91 is a pretty good chance of getting in. So we just we were that team that didn't get in with 91 wins, which is tough. But hey, that's it is what it is like we just doesn't mean we need to be to whine about that or be disappointed. Nobody cares. Just find a way to keep getting better and keep improving.

Zoran Stojkovic: 27:36

So Mark, how accurately Do you feel Reid diamond portrayed you in the 2011 film Moneyball starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill

Mark Shapiro: 27:44

have Moneyball question I always I wish I wish I had known when I agreed to let them use my, my name in that movie that I would be answering questions all these years later. You know, listen, read diamond, they found a guy that they could dress up to kind of look a little bit like me, probably not good for him there. But not bad for me. But in reality, it was pretty the scene was the scenes I was in were pretty fictitional I wasn't even GM yet. When those things happen. I was assistant GM. You know, while I know Billy well, and he's a friend, he was never in my office in Cleveland. You know, I recommended the guy that that Jonah Hill played Paul de Pedesta, you know, obviously didn't use his name. It wasn't a situation where he was stolen from us. And we were doing a lot of those things, too. I'll be at the as you know, little behind us. They they kind of portray Cleveland as a big market, and which is kind of humorous. While we did function that way for a little bit in the mid 90s. To do some unusual circumstances. You know, we were for the entire time I was GM. There. We were a very small market team. And we were doing differently, but thinking about things the same way as the A's, which are, you know, how do we mind value in the marketplace? How do we, you know, find competitive advantage overcome huge resource gaps?

Zoran Stojkovic: 29:08

For sure. And years ago, when I watched the movie, I figured that those movies have to make scenes entertaining, and they don't know exactly the dialogue that happened. And I know that they put

Mark Shapiro: 29:22

the general themes are still valid and important, but it actually was good for me to, to experience that. Because when they say based upon a true story, you recognize Well, in order to make four to five years, in the 90 minutes or 100 minutes, you're going to need to take a lot of liberties with the actual story. I think that's what they have to do and they make movies so there it should say very loosely based upon a true story.

Zoran Stojkovic: 29:47

Yeah, so it's, it's an entertaining movie. I think what I got out of it was the importance of analytics. And is that

Mark Shapiro: 29:55

the absolutely the importance of data driven or informed decision making? You know, are is is important. I think, as I, as I reflect on that now, it's more understanding bias, you know, which is something that we as a game did not do well for decades. And so when you thought about the ways that we made decisions, you know, it was prone to so many different biases, recency bias, contextual bias. recency bias is obviously a huge one, like, who won the World Series? How do they do it, that's the way we need to build our team or, you know, the loudest voice in the room or whatever it was, like we were prone to, you know, and then recognizing that model based decision making, which is, you know, a frame framework for how we make decisions based on the history of similar decisions that have been made, some of which would involve data and analytics, but some of which may still be subjective opinion, but put into a framework where we're looking at it from a models perspective, we're going to end up with a better decision at the cook, because ultimately, we're going to regress out the bias that you know, could infect the decision making process,

Zoran Stojkovic: 31:11

right. And interviews are, have typically been found to not be a great predictor of performance job performance. Actually, absolutely.

Mark Shapiro: 31:20

If you're facing if you're, if you think you can hire Well, based just on an hour, it's for the exact same reasons that individuals aren't great decision makers want individuals not a better decision maker than any other, right? Because you're basing that on such a, you know, I've got a good gut feel on people I can I have a good a good gut on her, I can, like read her better than anyone else. Campbell, I know, you can't, you know, you actually cannot, you know, but if you go through a rigorous, you know, multi leveled, you know, hiring process that involves, you know, a lot of different people and perspectives involved in plan force ranking, you know, and, you know, writing samples and, you know, other exercises that actually demonstrate, you know, how someone works as well as 360, you deep dive into their work history, you got a much better chance to make a good hire than just sitting with them for an hour.

Zoran Stojkovic: 32:15

You do and hiring, onboarding and turnover actually quite expensive processes for organizations to take quite a lot of time actually bring bring somebody up to speed to find the right person? Yeah, whether somebody is going through headhunters recruiters, or whatever the situation is. So picking the right people is is really, in one of your interviews, you talk, you said something that really stuck with me. You talk about aligning the leader you are with the man that you are, and that's something that your father passed down to you? How can leaders do a check to see how aligned these two are for them?

Mark Shapiro: 32:57

Yeah, I think it comes down to, you know, a level of awareness, you know, that you as you start to act and think about, you know, am I different? Am I acting differently, you know, when I'm at home, as a father, as a partner, as a brother, as a son, than I am when I walk in a building, and I'm supposedly a leader, right? I shouldn't be any different, I should be the same person, the same human being, when you start to believe the hype of a title, a CEO title, oh, today I'm act putting my CEO cable I'm acting as a CEO, or a GM or whatever role you've got, you're going to start to believe that you're special in some way. And again, it's gonna result in you know, getting back to you not being as open minded, not, you know, being as compassionate, empathetic, vulnerable, all the things that, you know, will, you know, surely lead you to be a better leader over a period of time and make better decisions and, and how maximize the talent within an organization. So, I think when I think about life's most important roles, certainly being a father is the one that I view to be most important. So why would I want to be good at that, or, you know, any lessons that are any better at that, than I am as a leader, I just view those to be the same, I need to lead the same way that I parents need the same way that I, you know, partner Lee, the same way that I'm a friend, you know, and I just don't do that to be any different. And so I hoped that I keep people near me in my life that you know, feel free to call me out they see that I'm getting off course but I'm also you also never far from realizing that you know, the self importance doesn't mean anything, everything's pretty temporary. It can all go away pretty quickly. So the one thing that I want to be certain of is, you know, the relationships because those Outlast everything else.

Zoran Stojkovic: 34:54

They do. So what I'm hearing is having those people around you that can that no you are deep down as a person. And for them to have the freedom and the psychological safety to say, Hey, you're been off course for a couple days. And here's what you're doing here is how it's affecting those around you.

Mark Shapiro: 35:14

And for me to be aware enough that when I start to feel those things, or think those things, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not good. You're not any better. Don't expect to be treated any differently than anyone else. And, you know, make sure that you're holding yourself to the same standards you're holding other people to.

Zoran Stojkovic: 35:32

I do have each episode I do a listener question. Okay, this one comes from Tom Jones, who's a former Canadian National Team volleyball player. So Tom asked, when you have a star performer, who's a either staff or, or player, office staff player doesn't matter, who's having a negative impact? How do you work with them on changing that?

Mark Shapiro: 35:54

It's not easy, you know, again, I'd say, try to get it right up front, rather than try to correct it along the way. So be good at before you drafted sign or traded for that player, you already recognize some of that is going to be dependent upon how far advanced your culture is already. Because if it's if it's if it's advanced enough than peer to peer player to player, they'll take care of it themselves, which is where you want to be, you want to be able to take the chance on a player who might not perfectly align has the talent to help make you a championship team, but might not perfectly aligned with the culture, you can do that, if you're far enough along where your culture is clearly defined, where people there feel responsible and invested in it, and are willing to enforce it, you know, themselves. If me or we as leaders have to sit down with someone and try to get them back on course. You know, again, like, it's going to be tough, because we're dealing with adults that are probably already fully formed, we can help them be more aware, you know, of why that's important, we can openly have the conversation that, you know, our team's success is dependent upon some adjustments, and you know, how that how you're behaving and how it's impacting others. But if it says, that's something that's not relevant or important, and people feel like all those things, you know, should be justified by talent, then they're probably not a good fit for the culture. There's a balance between, you know, talent and character, talents, just kind of a given. But ultimately, if someone feels that their talent, you know, justifies any behavior, even at how it's counterproductive to a culture, then they're probably not the right fit for us. And I think those players or players that we either have chosen to trade or to ultimately not resign here,

Zoran Stojkovic: 37:50

how would your answer change? If? How would you deal with like a non big name player, if they were having the same negative impact on culture,

Mark Shapiro: 37:57

same way, it's just easier to make the change.

Zoran Stojkovic: 38:00

Thank you so much for coming on this. I've, I've really enjoyed this. And I know, folks are going to get a lot of value out of this. And I got a lot out of it myself, where can people connect with you?

Mark Shapiro: 38:14

Well, I mean, I do, I, I'm not active, you know, as far as putting stuff out there, but I'm on Twitter every day, it's I find, I find Twitter to be actually a, you know, in the realm of social media, you know, it's if you're selective about the people you follow on what you're read, there's so much incredible, incredible information and so much, you know, knowledge being shared on Twitter that you can direct mail me right from my, you know, at Mark Shapiro, right from my, you know, Twitter, and I will occasionally like, I like a lot of things. So if you're watching them liking and you follow me watch I'm liking or I occasionally will put stuff out there too, sometimes just fun stuff. And sometimes, you know, you know, things I think are relevant is for for other people that are like minded in the way we kind of think about learning and, and growth and, and getting better. So that's probably the best way, you know, I will certainly look there and always respond to people as well.

Zoran Stojkovic: 39:11

Amazing. So Twitter, I'll put that in the show notes. And fine, just the final question. Any parting thoughts?

Mark Shapiro: 39:17

No, I mean, I think the, you know, the opportunity to kind of reflect and think about, you know, how essential culture is to both me personally and us as an organization, you know, in ensuring that we identify people that to work and play here that, you know, share a similar set of beliefs in the way we treat other people and the way we focus on growth is not just important for you know, our fulfillment and happiness but also important for our competitiveness. You know, we're trying to overcome an outperform objective expectations for that to happen. You know, we need not just 1520 people, which is kind of popular culture, you know, focuses on individuals. But our thoughts are always Hey, what if we get 50 100 200 250 People all, you know, performing all accountable of thinking about how to get better, you know, how what could that mean to us as an organization and we I think we started to cross the tipping point that you know what it feels like to work in the Blue Jays IT organization and to be here. And like I said, we're going to keep executing on that keep believing and doubling down on those values. And I think the championships will follow, you know, the those beliefs and actions, you know, we've got heavy lift, the heavy lifting of transforming the culture is done. You know, when I think about the next five years, it's perpetual growth, you know, it's perpetual opportunities to improve, it's thinking about where the next opportunity to gain incremental competitive advantage lies. And, you know, I think paramount to us finding where those competitive advantages are, are staying true to the values of, you know, collaboration, learning and powering, you know, achieving and respect. So, if we continue to live, those, you know, will advance the culture moving forward, which means a lot of new people will come in and continue to kind of push us to higher levels in performance.

Zoran Stojkovic: 41:18

There's a ton of took away from the conversation with Mark. But if there's one thing I want you to take away, it's this before you look for the next hire or recruit, sit down with your leadership group and revisit your values, answer questions, such as what links us and what differentiates working for this team, or organization. Once you have the answers to those questions, it gives you a common language, something you can use in evaluations, and something you can use the hold each other accountable as colleagues, but it also gives you something you can deeply believe in. You can then use those values to rethink and reshape your hiring process and enhance the human capital because you're going to be making better hiring decisions. And human capital is the value. Those who are part of your team bring to the table who you let into your team has the biggest impact on culture. Join us next time for a conversation with Travis Thomas, leadership and team development specialist at the US Men's National Soccer Team as we deep dive into how improvisation and creativity can build a high performance culture. Hey, thanks for listening to cultivate your culture. I hope you enjoyed our deep dive into how to level up the relationships and environment to cultivate your team's culture. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone in your life, leave a rating and subscribe visit KI zero.ca/podcast to get extra resources and join our email list. A huge shout out to teriyaki from earbuds for producing the music for this show and to Kate love it and Silvio Canalla parola for helping produce and promote the show. Cultivate your cultures produced by Keizo a leadership coaching organization helping teams to get the results they want so that they can positively impact the world. To learn more about the services Keizo can provide for your team, please check out our website at K zero.ca/team See you again next week.